


Off-Menu

by chennieforyourthoughts



Category: EXO (Band), Monsta X (Band), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: ........ I Really Love that Tag, Alternate Universe - Bakery, CBX Have to be Stopped, Especially not together, Food, Lots of Food, M/M, Min Yoongi | Suga Is Bad at Feelings, Yoongi and Jooheon probably should never have opened a bakery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 14:18:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12608512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chennieforyourthoughts/pseuds/chennieforyourthoughts
Summary: Minseok took one look around the shop and made his own coffee.





	Off-Menu

**Author's Note:**

> _“Cooking is like love- it should be entered into with abandon or not at all.” – Harriet Van Horne_
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> For Rowan— very sorry this is so late! I hope you like it. ♥
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> [(Fanfic Disclaimer + More ♥)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chen_CHING/profile)

The hour of the morning Min Yoongi stepped into the kitchen to find peace and quiet would likely be better described as an ungodly hour by most. He’d been hunched over a batch of dough for only about ten minutes when Jooheon stumbled into the kitchen after him, pushing his glasses onto his nose so as to not walk into anything.

“Morning, Yoongi hyung,” Jooheon said, nudging the faucet on. “Sleep alright?”

Yoongi afforded himself a smile but kept his eyes on his work. “Thank you, Jooheon-ah, I did. I hope you did as well.”

The next five and a half hours were filled without words, the sounds of a busy kitchen bringing the city to life.

The first customer of Sugar, Candy, and Honey (“Suga, Candy, and Heonnie” as their apprentice’s friend enjoyed calling it almost as much as he enjoyed making fun of their old underground rapper days— the two were not mutually exclusive) was at the door at precisely 6:30am. He’d bundled himself up but his cheeks were still pink from the cold. Mark, the college student Yoongi had hired because he could take the morning shift before his classes, was quick to unlock the doors and let him inside. “Quick, Minseok hyung, before the girls get in!” Minseok dashed through the entrance and Mark shut the doors again before the flood of Moms Who Run™ could make it through as well. “Hoseok hyung! Your ladies are here again!”

Jooheon laughed from where he was arranging the pastries in the bakery’s display. “They aren’t my girls,” Hoseok reminded Mark, as he did every morning.

“That would imply he isn’t head over heals for that one waiter at that _ramen house_ he loves so much,” Minseok grinned. Hoseok shook his head and concentrated much too hard on gathering the supplies their favorite customer would need.

“Here you go, _hyung,”_ he sighed, placing the tray down on the counter with a dramatic _thud_ of metal.

“HOSEOK! That had better not have been my coffee again!”

“Sorry, Yoongi hyung!” Hoseok and Mark exchanged a look over the counter. Jooheon continued his front window artistry. The ladies out front kept waiting for a chance to get Hoseok’s number.

Minseok took one look around the shop and made his own coffee.

 

Afterwards, he lifted his messenger bag from his side and set it on top of the pristine white counter. “Payment, Yoongi and Jooheon!” Both bakers emerged from where they’d congregated back in the kitchen, padding over to Minseok’s seat to see what he’d brought this time.

“Dae suggested I try something new,” Minseok explained as he flipped the bag open and reached inside. When his hand left it, clutched in his palm was the smallest— and cutest— cake any of those gathered around had seen. “And Baek wanted Pusheen, so….”

“Kim Minseok, you’re a miracle!” Jooheon crouched down to be eyelevel with the confection on the table, taking mental notes on what made it work.

“Well, I’m not sure about that—“

The doors burst open, and in came the flood of expectant ladies. At their head, however, was a man with heavy eyeliner, Rolling Stones t-shirt, and…. double-laced Converse? Mark and Hoseok both hadn’t known those existed before that moment.

 _“Minnie,_ how’d it turn out?”

Yoongi groaned and made a quick exit to the kitchen. “Mark, please go help those lovely ladies. And Minseok hyung, please get your boyfriend under control.”

“I’m not even the loud one!” The man— one of Minseok’s famed boyfriends, Hoseok guessed— shouted in reply.

“Jongdae, that’s exactly what he means. But you’re right, Baek can be even louder than you.”

Yoongi appeared from the air behind Mark and glared over the counter at Minseok. “If that means what I think it meant, I’m not inviting you back to my bakery, even if you _are_ EXO’rdium’s pastry chef.”

“Well, I’d better tell Junmyeon I won’t be reporting in tonight then.”

“Soo’d have a field day with that one,” Jongdae laughed, and Mark decided he wasn’t as…. odd as Yoongi had made him seem. But he was definitely louder than Minseok had told them.

“He already doesn’t like us,” Hoseok sighed.

Jongdae cackled, his head thrown back but his hair somehow remaining stationary. Outrageous amounts of hairspray, Mark guessed. “He doesn’t like _you_ ,” he reminded Hoseok, “because you took him out to a ramen place because you— and I quote— _‘Think the waiter is cute.’”_

Hoseok stumbled into the counter and groaned. “How does everyone know about that? How do _you_ know that?”

“I’m the maître d’. I know everything. Like how the first time Baekhyun reported in Chanyeol got so distracted he scorched the soup.”

“Oh my god, I remember that! Kyungsoo-ah was so angry, I thought Chan-ah would lose at least a limb.” Mark smiled as the boyfriends recounted various kitchen adventures from behind the scenes of the city’s favorite resturant. Kihyun, the head barista of the café part of the bakery, slipped out of the cold and settled into his normal routine. He, Mark, and Hoseok exchanged a look as they listened to the stories which gradually became wilder (and harder to comprehend).

“Remember when Junmyeon hyung opened Baek’s phone because he wanted to Google something and ended up seeing his ‘Morning’ playlist that ended up being ’20 Percent Cooler’ by Ken Ashcorp twenty times over?”

“And how the maknaes started screaming, ‘BRING OUT THE BACARDI’ whenever he entered the kitchen and the patrons thought the kitchen was on fire, so someone called a fire truck? And Taeyong and Winnie were there, and they started going ‘woop woop!!’ along with its sirens?”

“Or how we all dressed up as elves for Halloween and Nini and Kyungsoo threw their awful hats to two trick or treating teenage girls?”

“And how when we finally arrived at the party, minus Yixing and Junmyeon who we couldn’t find, we ended up finding them in _Taeyong’s_ bedroom?”

“Aha, I remember that! Ty was beyond irritated because he thought he was being exiled from his own room. But really they were in there _talking.”_

“I can’t believe they met at a SHINee concert,” Minseok sighed, shaking his head.

“Suiting.” Jongdae took a sip of the drink Minseok had made him during their conversation. “’SHINee make you happy’ indeed!”

“United by their love for the SHINee boys…. The purest love of all for the purest couple of them all,” Hoseok exclaimed from where he was making something with far too much mocha for one of the ladies.

“So that’s why SHINee is always playing in the kitchen,” Jooheon realized, looking up from his own coffee.

“Well, there’s that, and then there’s the fact that we’re _all_ closeted SHINee fans.”

Yoongi, having been drawn by the conversation, settled down next to Jooheon. “Purest couple, and I’m deaf.” He rolled his eyes, flashbacks of what really happened at Lee Taeyong’s party returning.

Jooheon laughed at that, knowing immediately what the other baker was thinking of. “I’m so sorry you had to witness that, Yoongi hyung.” His tone had turned a sort of false-seriousness, and he pat Yoongi on the back in an effort to be consoling.

“I don’t understand.”

“Let’s keep it that way, Jongdae-ah.”

“Oh, so _that’s_ why Junmyeon and Yixing hyungs haven’t been invited back. Good for them!”

 

Minseok’s cake made it safely behind the other goods, on the opposite side of the glass from the gawking patrons so it would not be threatened before Yoongi could get at it. (Perhaps he’d share a little with Jooheon, but that was a distinct _maybe._ )

Rain poured from the bakery’s overhang, so when a young man stepped across the threshold into the brightly lit interior he brought the weather with him. Minhyuk, their best cashier Changkyun’s roommate and the only waiter at the moment, laid eyes on him and immediately began searching for a towel. “DON’T MOVE!” He shrieked, and it was loud enough to make Jooheon emerge from the depths to see what the problem was. Upon seeing the stranger dripping water onto the floor, he handed the towel slung over his shoulder to Minhyuk.

“Very sorry, sir, but my colleague is right— we’ve got to get you dried off before the co-owner sees this.”

“Before I see what?” Jooheon’s gulp was audible, and Minhyuk jumped away from the man like he was a pot of spitting butter.

“Yoongi-ssi, I can explain!” Minhyuk was quick to place himself between the lake of water on the floor and his boss, hands outstretched.

Yoongi stared at the three before him in disbelief.

“I apologize for the current state of your floor, and if you wish for me to clean it myself I will.” The customer had stepped around Minhyuk to face the co-owner directly, hands clasped together tightly but unafraid to meet Yoongi’s eyes.

“T-that’s quite alright, let’s just get you into warm clothes so you stop dripping all over my floor.” Minhyuk exchanged a shocked look with Changkyun behind the register.

Jooheon guided the newcomer up the stairs into the flat he shared with Yoongi above the bakery. When they returned, the drenched clothes had been replaced with a hoodie and sweatpants of Yoongi’s. The baker himself had finished his final batch of bread and it was cooling on the racks in the back, its scent diffusing across the shop. “Is there anything I can get you….”

“Oh my goodness, I’m Jimin! Park Jimin. I’m sorry, it slipped my mind that I hadn’t introduced myself.”

“Well, Jimin, it’s nice to meet you now that you’re no longer flooding my shop.” As they shook hands over the counter, Minhyuk giggled from his spot next to Changkyun. Yoongi pretended not to notice it. “Min Yoongi.”

Jimin looked over the available pastries, and Yoongi saw with horror the exact moment he laid eyes on the Pusheen cake. “Is…. that Pusheen?”

“Yup, Xiumin made it.”

“EXO’rdium’s Xiumin?”

“That’s the one. It—“

“It’s for sale!” Jooheon froze midsentence. The change Changkyun was dropping into the register from his latest customer missed and hit the floor. Even the customers waiting in line stood in shock. “But you can have a piece— it was going to go to waste if it wasn’t sold, after all.”

“We can’t have that happen!” Jimin’s eyes were huge, but in an opposite way from the employees of the bakery.

Jooheon began mentally composing his funeral remarks for Yoongi, as well as his own will, for if he wasn’t murdered by his hyung he would be by the ladies who had already had their eyes on the cake.

Jimin insisted on sharing the cake with Yoongi, so it met its demise on two small plates placed on a quiet table in the corner. It was the EXO’rdium group’s usual table when they visited in the afternoon before their shifts, and was carefully kept as unoccupied as possible by Minhyuk and the waiters who arrived in rotating shifts later in the day—Hyojin, Changyoon, Seungjoon, Yuto, and a different Minseok— in preparation for their arrivals. But that afternoon, they took a glance over at the two and exchanged quiet words with Minhyuk and the two baristas on duty, Minkyun and Wyatt, before picking out an open table a distance away from Yoongi and Jimin.

“It’s good to see your cake’s going to good use, Minnie,” Baekhyun said, and the pastry chef pouted at the nickname. It didn’t last long, however, quickly disappearing when Jongdae ruffled his hair.

 

• • •

 

Jimin returned the next morning. He was chatting with Minseok outside the shop when Mark opened the door and then braced it against the flood. Jooheon was working with the front window again, and he was quick to greet both when they entered. “Hello sir, you must be Jimin! I’m Mark, and I’ll go get Yoongi hyung for you right away.” Mark was gone before Jimin could process his words, leaving him perplexed and Minseok amused in Mark’s wake.

From out of the back came Yoongi, water dripping from his freshly washed hands and Mark at his side. Jimin was shocked by how clean the baker’s clothes were, and it was apparently evident because he chuckled and nodded towards Minseok. “It’s because of that neat freak over there. He said if I wasn’t more careful he’d stop coming, and that would mean he’d stop bringing us his heaven-on-earth pastries.” The man in question wasted no time in validating Yoongi’s story.

“Want me to make you a coffee?” Minseok questioned, and it took Jimin a moment to realize it was directed at him. He stiffened without thinking, and Minseok laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m not looking for another boyfriend. I already have the two from _hell.”_

Jimin’s mouth dropped open in an “o” and Hoseok leaned over from where he was organizing glasses. Jimin blinked, but made up his mind. “Yes, please, I’d love one if it isn’t too much trouble.”

“Speaking of the hellions, where are they this fine morning?”

“Well, Jongdae’s at the gym and Baek’s doing god knows what.” One of the ladies in line snorted, and Minseok flashed her a blinding smile.

A plate adorned with a _pain au chocolate_ appeared in front of Jimin, and he could tell from the scent that it was freshly made. Minseok appeared both forlorn and excited that only Jimin had gotten one, and he worked on Jimin’s coffee with renewed vigor. “You know, Minseok-ssi, if you ever leave EXO you’d more than definitely have a job opportunity here.” Yoongi took the seat on Jimin’s other side, having gotten ahead on his baking this morning so he’d be able to spend some time with him.

The pastry chef smiled, and as soon as Jimin took a sip of the drink Minseok had prepared he _knew_ he had to go to EXO’rdium on one of his free nights. “So, Jimin, you’re a student, right?”

“Korean and English literature double majors, Minseok-ssi.” Hoseok whistled in approval.

“Wow, you must be busy! You should talk to Jungkook in the back, he’s an English major as well.”

“It’s his day off, though, so maybe stop back by tomorrow?”

 

• • •

 

It was indeed the next day when Jimin returned to the shop, but it was later in the morning as instructed. He didn’t have any classes until early afternoon, so he arrived closer to nine after his routine gym run. He’d met a kind young man while lifting weights, and something about his name had struck him as familiar although he couldn’t place it.

_“I’m going to go to a bakery after this,” Jimin had told him, pushing through another hellish rep._

_“Which one, if I may ask?”_

_“It’s called ‘Sugar, Candy, and Honey’?” The fellow weight-lifter had grinned, cat-like even through the pain of the weights._

_“Oh, SCH! My boyfriend likes to go there. You should ask Jooheon for one of his specials.”_

That exchange was remembered as he stepped into Sugar, Candy, and Honey to find Kihyun _screaming_ at a customer. Hoseok, Changkyun, and Minhyuk stood off to the side with wide eyes as they watched the battle of wills go down. Jooheon was the only one who seemed unperturbed, but Jimin noticed with confusion that although he was out front he was cleaning the doors instead of stocking the window. They appeared to be remarkably smudged, and Jimin got the increasing feeling it had something to do with the obviously sleep-deprived man Kihyun was reprimanding. “This is not Starbucks. We make true coffee here, and the monstrosity I just had to make for you is _nothing_ of the sort!” The man clutched his coffee cup close to his chest, but he seemed more surprised than upset.

“Excuse me, sir, but I just wanted something strong.”

“Four shots doesn’t make it strong, it makes it the espresso from Dante’s _Inferno_! And any self-respecting barista will not make it for you again.”

Jimin was standing next to the door, so when the customer made a rapid exit he could feel the air move. “Jimin!” Hoseok exclaimed, waving at him from next to the various machines. “You can head on back, Yoongi hyung has something to ask you.” To Jimin’s surprise, Jooheon stepped up to him and patted his shoulder.

“Don’t worry, Jimin, you’ll do fine.”

 _Not worrying at all,_ Jimin mused, taking a steadying breath.

The kitchen was separated from the front by a push-able half-door, but most of it wasn’t visible through the opening. Yoongi was working on some sort of sourdough, and it smelled heavenly as Jimin stepped into its range. “Hello, Yoongi-ssi?”

Yoongi startled, hands freezing for a second, before turning to face Jimin. “Hello, Jimin-ssi.”

“Hoseok and Jooheon told me you wanted to talk to me.”

Yoongi dusted the flour off his hands, and Jimin watched its path down to the dough. “I do.” There was silence for a second, so quiet Jimin wondered if he could hear the breads closest to him rise. “Since you spend quite a bit of time here, I was wondering if you would be willing to meet elsewhere.”

It took him a second, but Jimin deciphered Yoongi’s statement. “Yoongi-ssi, I do not want to assume, but are you asking me out?”

“….Perhaps.” The breads cooling on the rack behind Jimin were suddenly _very_ interesting to Yoongi, and Jimin raised an eyebrow.

“That’s a yes,” piped up a voice from somewhere deeper in the kitchen.

“Jungkook’s right,” Jooheon confirmed, nudging Jimin towards Yoongi under the pretense of getting him out of the walkway. “And you, Min Yoongi, had _better_ not waste the table Dae got for the two of you, because if you aren’t going to use it then I’m finally taking Kkungie out on a proper date.”

“I’m so confused,” Minhyuk moaned, clutching his head.

“Yes,” Jimin said, and the noise stopped.

If he’d known one word could make everything go quiet, make everyone stop, make Yoongi smile like that, he would’ve said it long ago.

 

• • •

 

On the day of their date, Jimin stepped into the unusually well-lit interior of EXO'rdium to come face-to-face with the man from the gym. “Ah, Mr. Park, is it? I see you followed my advice and asked Jooheon for his special.” Jongdae’s eyes twinkled, and Jimin found himself smiling back.

“I did.”

“Now please follow me, sir— your fellow advice-taker is waiting for you just this way!”

           

When the dessert course came, Yoongi abruptly burst into laughter. Patrons turn in their chairs to stare, and Jimin sat in stunned stillness. But when it arrived at their table, Jimin realized that Yoongi had been able to see it since it exited the kitchen and figured out what was so amusing about it.

Minseok set the neatly-designed plate before them, and although it was wonderfully done there was just one thing odd about it besides the pastry chef’s rare appearance.

_“One Pusheen cake for the cutest couple!”_

“Think they’ll ever come back?” Baekhyun questioned from his spot next to Chanyeol. The two were staring out the tiny window in the kitchen door looking out into the dining room, practically glued together so they would both be able to see.

“Look at them! They’ll _definitely_ come back, they’re almost as love with Minnie’s cake as they are with each other.”

“Love at first sight,” someone sighed in the back.

“Nice work, hyung!” Baekhyun cheered as Minseok opened the door and he separated from Chanyeol.

“I’d better see a unicorn cake like that at my wedding with Junmyeon.” Yixing shook a spoon at him, and Minseok laughed.

“Alright, I’ll make everyone one weird cake of their choice. Eight off-menu cakes coming right up!”


End file.
